Claire Hummel puts a lot of research into her "Historical Disney Princesses" series, producing far more ornate, interesting, and period accurate princesses than the original Disney designs. And yes, she is going to do Merida.

Not only are these pieces really pretty to look at — and they are so pretty — each one on her DeviantArt page has an explanation for how she determined the right time period to do and her inspirations. For example, her description of how she came up with her Ariel:

The Little Mermaid is hard to place from a time period standpoint — Grimsby's wearing a Georgian getup, Ariel's pink dress with the slashed sleeves subscribes to several eras from the Renaissance to the 1840s, Eric is... Eric.

I went with Ariel's wedding dress as a starting point since those gigantic leg-o-mutton sleeves (so embarrassingly popular in '80s wedding fashion) were a great starting point for an 1890s evening gown. It's also not unfeasible that Eric's cropped tailcoat could be from the same era, so I'm sticking with my choice. PLUS Ariel with Gibson girl hair? COME ON IT IS AWESOME.

It's probably too close to the event for anyone to start on this now, but if anyone sees a historical Maleficent cosplayer at San Diego Comic Con (or any con. Or just walking down the street) please let me know.